The article below is yet another gimmick for getting people into church – free season tickets.
Tag Archives: gimmick
ANOTHER GIMMICK: Text Messaging Questions to the Preacher during the Sermon
Is this a gimmick or a legitimate innovation for preaching? During sermons, the Rev. Mike Schreiner of Morning Star Church (United Methodist denomination), allows text messages to be sent off – to him that is, with questions relating to the sermon.
The so-called ‘Director of Worship,’ Amie Haskins, receives the messages on the church mobile phone. These she screens and then types questions into a keyboard to be sent via a computer connected to Schreiner’s lap top in the pulpit.
With the questions appearing on his screen, this allows Schreiner the ability to answer relevant questions during the sermon.
The text messaging also engages the young people of the church and they listen more intently than they did before.
The text messaging is part of the wider ‘technological ministry’ operating at the church, which includes lighting controls, presentations on the large screens above the stage, wide-screen plasma monitors in the church’s coffee shop in the lobby, etc.
Apparently the texting fad is taking off across the US and is even used to some degree in the Mars Hill Church at Seattle.
Part of the philosophy behind the texting fad seems to be to be more appealing to people so that they come to church and get more involved in what is actually happening. Undoubtedly this would be an attractive and seemingly successful method for getting people involved and coming along, especially those who love their gadgets these days.
I am sure that texting has its place in the ministry of any modern church and can prove very useful to send messages to large numbers of people at once and for keeping in touch, however, the use of texting in the local church context seems to me to be out of place.
Preaching ought not to be confused with teaching, with the two being different aspects of a church’s ministry. Certainly any true preaching will include teaching, but teaching need not include preaching. Preaching is the authoritative declaration of the Word of God to the people of God by the God-called preacher of God. He comes with a message that is to be heard by the people of God for the people of God. The message is not to be tailor made to the felt needs of the people sitting in the congregation nor is it to be modified to suit the desires of those sitting there as expressed via texted questions to the preacher.
The danger is that the preacher will be moved away from his task and go off message to pursue certain tangents that may not even have been the course he intended to take as the messenger of God to the people of God. He comes with the Burden of the Lord and he must speak and be heard as that messenger.
Preaching is a declaration and explanation of the Word with relevant and searching application and as such is not a dialogue, no matter what form that dialogue might take.
For more on this read the article on texting in church at:
THE GREEN BIBLE
A now established form of the Bible is the red lettered versions with the speech of Jesus coloured red. Now comes the ‘Green Bible’ from HarperCollins. The Green Bible will have all references to nature coloured forest green to show Christians and readers of the Bible that Christianity was meant to be environmentally friendly.
True Christianity will always be environmental friendly for Christians are meant to care for the world into which we have placed and to use the resources given to us from our gracious God in a responsible manner. This further ‘user friendly’ version of the Bible is yet another gimmick obviously designed to sell further Bibles and create more wealth for HarperCollins. It is a very transparent marketing ploy surely.
What will be next? Perhaps a homosexual Bible with all verses relating to homosexuality in the colour pink – however, that will probably not catch on as the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality is quite different to the world’s and institutionalised Christianity’s.
Read more on the Green Bible at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1842268,00.html
SEX SERMONS… THE LATEST US CHURCH GIMMICK
According to newspaper reports in Australia, an American Baptist pastor has created a website promoting his latest gimmick, Puresextucson.com. Pastor Jeremiah McDuffie created the website to promote a series of sex sermons and issues related to Christians as a consequence of sex.
According to McDuffie, he wants people to know that God wants them to have good sex and that he wanted to begin an open dialogue on the subject. He has also sent postcards to promote the sermon series and website to some 35 000 homes in Tucson, Arizona.
The Element Community Church is hosting the sex series and the flashy website introduction points you to the church website for more information.
The idea of teaching God’s people about the right place of sex in their lives is something that has enormous merit. However, it is the gospel that remains the vehicle for bringing in the elect, and faith and repentance the means of gaining salvation in Christ alone, which are gifts of God’s grace.
By promoting sermons on sex, McDuffie and the Element Community Church may very well get a large number of people along to their church and even gain a number of people that will continue to attend. But will they gain the unsaved for Christ by doing so? Again, it is the gospel that God uses in bringing salvation to the elect and not a series of sermons on sex. Having a whole group of people hanging around the church simply because their interests have been titillated will do nothing for their well being and may in fact cause great harm to the church itself.
Sadly, this exercise of the Element Community Church would appear to be just another gimmick in the American church as is typical of the Church Growth Movement. Browsing the church website would also lead one to think that the Element Community Church has drunk fully at the Church Growth Movement trough and imbibed its tragic spirit.
Indeed, the church website has a link to McDuffie’s Blog site, in which he actually praises Rick Warren, one of the founding fathers of the modern church growth movement.
Random Thoughts 